★Improvised Music From Japan
Improvised Music from Japan 2009
Improvised Music from Japan 2009 takes a look at improvised/experimental music festivals and concert series in Japan. Covered in the book are 33 of the many festival/series events taking place around the country. The articles (some written by the org…
Loose Community
Otomo Yoshide (turntables, guitar) is active on a worldwide scale in such fields as free improvisation, composition, and film music. On a trip to Seoul in May of 2002, Otomo made a studio recording with Seoul musicians Park Je Chun (percussion) and M…
Ensemble Cathode
Taku Sugimoto: electric guitar, Tetuzi Akiyama: turntable without records, contact microphones, Yasuhiro Yoshigaki: waterphone, Kumiko Takara: snare drum, Masahiro Uemura: bells, Ami Yoshida: voice, Itoken: crotales, Mari Furuta: snare drum, Yoshimit…
Tayutauta
Yumiko Tanaka (Futozao Shamisen, vocal). Yumiko Tanaka made her mark as a traditional shamisen artist specializing in the female-school gidayu style. Tanaka was a member of Otomo Yoshihide's Ground-Zero in 1996-'97, and she is currently involved in a…
MEETING AT OFF SITE VOL. 2
Tetuzi Akiyama plays amplified acoustic guitar on all tracks except #2 (turntable and air duster), and #7 (electric bass). Toshimaru Nakamura plays no-input mixing board on all tracks except #7 (tabletop guitar). Gallery Off Site in Yoyogi, Tokyo -- …
MEETING AT OFF SITE VOL. 1
Toshimaru Nakamura (no-input mixing board), Tetuzi Akiyama (guitar, turntable, contact microphones). With Ami Yoshida (voice), Brett Larner (amplified ukelin), Thomas Ankersmit (sax), Taku Sugimoto (guitar), Tetsuro Yasunaga (electronics), Toshihiro …
MEETING AT OFF SITE 3
Gallery Off Site in Yoyogi, Tokyo, is one of the world's most well known venues for new improvised music. Meeting at Off Site, the monthly improvisational performance series hosted by Tetuzi Akiyama and Toshimaru Nakamura, has in recent years been Of…
IMPROVISED MUSIC FROM JAPAN EXTRA 2006
In addition to interviews of 12 musicians/1 group residing in Berlin (Gregor Hotz, Nicholas Bussmann, Merle Bennett, Thomas Ankersmit, Ignaz Schick, Hans Strobl, Pure, Annette Krebs, Andrea Neumann, Caramel Empties, Alessandro Bosetti, Boris Baltschu…
IMPROVISED MUSIC FROM JAPAN EXTRA 2003
This is a special issue supplementing the well-received IMPROVISED MUSIC FROM JAPAN 2002-2003 (IMJ-301), the launch issue of an annual magazine (published last December). While the annual magazine provides an overview of the year's trends, each EXTRA…
IMPROVISED MUSIC FROM JAPAN 2005
The 2005 edition of the annual Japanese-English magazine Improvised Music from Japan is devoted entirely to recent albums. Over 350 releases (with a cover photo for each) are presented. The albums, mainly from 2004-2005, span a wide range of styles--…
IMPROVISED MUSIC FROM JAPAN 2004
Magazine (English and JAPANese) with interviewes FROM Kazue Sawai, Yukiko Tanaka, Samm Bennett, Tetuzi Akiyama, Uchihashi Kazuhisa, Masahiko Okura, Sachiko M, Taku Sugimoto, Kazuo Imai, Aki Onda, texts by Tetsu Saitoh, Michel Doneda, Otomo Yoshhide… …
Side guitar
Toshimaru Nakamura's main instrument of late has been what he calls the 'no-input mixing board.' Rather than input external sound sources into the mixer, he treats it as a self-contained instrument by controlling its internal feedback -- the result b…
Oimacta
Tetuzi Akiyama has in recent years attracted tremendous interest on the Japanese and international improvised music scenes. In addition to performing many times in Europe, America, Australia, and New Zealand, he's been releasing a steady stream of so…
Ocket
This is the debut album of Osaka-based sound artist Tetsuya Umeda (born in 1980). Active mainly in the fields of sound installation and performance, Umeda presents works that invariably explore the character of a particular space through physical phe…
Live in Australia
Taku Sugimoto is an extremely restrained guitarist who produces very few sounds in performance, allowing silence to be the controlling force. As an improviser and composer, he's garnered international acclaim, and also provoked strong reactions, both…
48
Drummer Shoji Hano began his performing career in the '80s, playing with artists like Toshinori Kondo (trumpet) and Kaoru Abe (alto sax, etc.). Since his first European tour in 1990, he has played in many countries and collaborated with a wide range …
Secrets of teaching yourself music
Samm Bennett (Korg WaveDrum, vibrators and contact mics, Korg ER-1, Alesis AirSynth, Casio VL-Tone, CD player, Bias, bumble ball, can, gong, beepers, effectors and crank-toy with portable karaoke mic). Percussionist Samm Bennett was active on the New…
Bar
Sachiko M with two sinewaves on one empty sampler. Sachiko M is a musician who uses the sampler as an instrument. Rather than apply the device's original function of sampling recorded material, she makes music using nothing but its internal test tone…
Futatsu
Vienna resident Radu Malfatti, who turns 60 in December, is a trombonist and composer with a long and impressive career. In the nineties he established the unique compositional/improvisational style, using very few sounds, that he continues to develo…
Funny rat
Free jazz drummer Shoji Hano and German saxophone giant-leading European free improviser Peter Brotzmann first met in Japan in the early eighties. In 1990 Hano went to Europe for the first time and played with Brötzmann; then he invited Brotzmann to …